Are you unable to get a new graphics card? While you might be tempted blame bots, scalpers, or cryptocurrency miners for this, AMD CEO Lisa Su downplays the impact of crypto today at the 2021 Code Conference. When she was asked how important crypto was to AMD, Su said that it is a small part of the company. She also called it volatile and suggested that it should not be the main focus of AMD's future.
This is not surprising for many reasons. The first is that the upsides for GPU manufacturers like AMD and Nvidia have drastically decreased. This has been despite China's cryptocurrency crackdown which only intensified this week when China's central bank banned all cryptocurrency transactions. Although prices are still high, there have been reports of massive GPU sales from mining regions dating back several months.
Here are some reasons Su isn't going to boost cryptocurrency right now
A second possibility is that she might publicly declare that she supports AMD's pursuit of crypto sales. This could prove to be an unpopular view with AMDs hyper-vocal gamers, who believe every sale to a cryptocurrency miner is a sale at their cost and drive purchases of AMD motherboards and CPUs.
Su stated clearly at the Code Conference that gamers were top of her mind. She said, "We are trying really hard for gamers to get more products; I get so Many Dear Lisa, could you help me get gaming cards?" AMD was already criticized by gamers for revealing that it would not block mining workloads using its new GPUs. This is in contrast to Nvidia. We are building consumer applications.
Third, AMD might not have enough GPUs in stock to lure miners. We don't know how many current-gen GPUs AMD has shipped, but there are signs that it has sold fewer than Nvidia.
It is rarer to find an AMD GPU in stock. There are also fewer of them going on eBay. Not even one AMD GPU has made it into Steams Hardware Survey. This gives a rough idea of how many have made it into the hands of PC gamers. The survey revealed that 6 percent of gaming computers have one of the Nvidia 3000-series graphics cards. However, there isn't one AMD GPU listed on the list. This suggests that none of these GPUs have more than 0.15 percent of Steam gamers. Su may also be referring to the fact that AMD's new desktop GPUs don't make up a significant portion of their business when she says crypto isnt a big part of our business. Su stated in May that AMD had to prioritize certain components over others, but she did not mention GPUs.
Su addressed the continuing global shortage of chips onstage. She reiterated that supplies would be tight this year, and likely the first half next year. However, it will get better in 2022 when more production capacity is available. She told Code Conference attendees that it will improve next year, although not immediately. However, it will gradually improve as more plants are built.
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